herenow Complex Event Processing VII

All:

Further/final continuation (concatenate this blog thread in your head from I through this VII, if you're so inclined):

This column—like my CIR, an “event” in its own right--prompted considerable feedback, some positive, some negative, from the CEP/ESP industry, and the various vendors mentioned. Every one of the CEP/ESP people who responded asked me how much I'm "familiar" with their space--and each of them tried to quote me chapter/verse from the EPTS reference model--which I'd already perused so many times, long ago, that it was starting to appear in my daydreams. I’ve taken additional CEP/ESP vendor briefings since then, and am planning to write some up when they go public—soon, and possibly write up an Advisory Report on this space. And that’s the life of any industry analyst. Filtering a passing parade of events, taking flak, and fending off flacks, like any reporter. You stick your neck out there, and you have to have a tough hide. Cuz it's tough to hide, when you're as published/public as I am.

Which brings me to a thought. People often ask me how I manage this all in my head and heart. As I’ve said before, it’s a bit like being a reporter on a beat—alerted and tuned in and ready to respond to “breaking news.”

But it’s also a bit like meditation—i.e., sitting in rapt attention in contemplation of a dynamic multifaceted multidimensional space, like a kaleidoscopic Buddhist mandala or prayer wheel or gem, focusing on nothing in particular, but aware of literally everything on some level. The following excerpt from one of my recent extracurricular readings (Damien Keown, “Buddhism: A Very Short Introduction,” Oxford University Press, 1996) just jumped out at me as absolutely bang-on brilliant. It’s all a matter of recognizing that one’s own reactions to the day’s events are themselves events that, like the external events themselves, are impermanent, a passing parade, a ghostlike abstraction that shall soon pass, hence underlining the need for the engaged-but-detached observer/analyst to stay supple and adaptive and to roll with the flow of the all-changing:

*************************

“To the kind of techniques already described, which in Buddhism go by the generic name of ‘calming meditation’ (samatha), the Buddha added a new one called ‘insight meditation’ (vipassana). The goal of this was not peace and tranquility but the generation of penetrating and critical insight (prajna). Whereas in calming meditation intellectual activity subsides at an early stage (on reaching the second jhana), in insight meditation the object of the exercise is to bring the critical faculties fully into play in a detailed reflexive analysis of the meditators’ own state of mind. In practice, the two techniques of calming and insight are normally used back-to-back within the same session: calming may be used first to concentrate the mind and then insight to probe and analyze. It is impossible to practice insight meditation without having reached at least the level of calm of the first jhana.

“In insight meditation, the meditator examines every aspect of his subject experienced, breaking this down into four categories: the body and its physical sensations; feelings; mood; and mental patterns and thoughts. A typical session might proceed by extending awareness of the rise and fall of the breath to the rest of the body. Every minor sensation would be noted such a twinges, aches, itches, and impulse to move and scratch. The meditator does not respond to these impulses since the purpose of the exercise is to note with bare attention how bodily sensations arise and subside without reacting to them in the normal semi-automatic way. By learning to observe without becoming involved, the pattern of stimulus-response which underlies much human behavior can be broken. Little by little the realization dawns that one is free to choose how to react in all situations regardless of which buttons are pushed. The grip of long-standing habits and compulsions is weakened and replaced with a new sense of freedom. The analysis is gradually extended to the whole body, the intellect being wielded like a surgeon’s scalpel to dissect the various bodily parts and functions. From this the awareness arises that the body is nothing more than a temporary assemblage of bones, nerves, and tissues, certainly not a worthy object to become infatuated with or excessively attached to.

“Next, attention is directed to whatever feelings arise. Pleasant and unpleasant feelings are noted as they arise and pass away. This sharpens the perception of impermanence and gives rise to the knowledge that even those things which seems most intimate to us—such as our emotions—are transient states which come and go. Next, the subject’s current mood and constant fluctuations in its overall quality and tone are observed, and finally the stream of thoughts which passes through the mind. The meditator must resist the temptation to lose himself in the daydreams and fantasies which inevitably arise. Instead, he simply observes with detachment as the thoughts and images follow one another, regarding them like clouds passing across a clear blue sky, or bubbles floating to the top of a glass. From this detached observation, it gradually becomes clear that even one’s conscious mind is but a process like everything else.”

*************************

So, then, consciousness is just complex event processing, event stream processing, in an event-driven arc of creation.

As an IT industry analyst, you must do a very focused, sustained form of CEP/ESP, meditating headlong at full tilt, constantly, in bare non-metaphorical prose, deeply engaged and fully exposed, acutely aware of and responding to what others are saying, in a restless, dynamic industry, under deadline.

Not in a sedentary lotus position, or with a fixed object/objective, or in a stable social order, or particularly calming, or profoundly insightful on any given day, or any given industry event.

And that's where the Buddha parallel ends.

Jim

herenow Complex Event Processing VI

All:

Further continuation:

Then, the following month, I leveraged this analysis and some other CEP/ESP-related CIRs I wrote up, plus other research material that I hadn’t found its way into any Current Analysis report, into the following Network World column, which was published on August 16:

**********************************

COMPLEX EVENT PROCESSING: STILL ON LAUNCHPAD

--James Kobielus

Complex event processing (CEP) has a sleek, shiny, space-age allure. CEP has been blinking on the information technology (IT) industry’s “next big thing” radar for quite a while, promising business agility through continuous correlation and visualization of multiple event-streams. Event-driven application architectures are becoming more important for modern business, as the volume of time-sensitive, real-time data that enterprise and carrier networks must process, store, and manage continues to expand.

However, CEP has yet to launch into the stratosphere of mainstream enterprise applications. For sure, the technology—also known as “event processing” or “event stream processing”--has found its niche with operational applications such as business activity monitoring (BAM), distributed process control, sensor networks, financial transaction surveillance, and integrated logistics management. But rare is the CEP application that supports the everyday needs of the average knowledge worker. CEP is still predominantly deployed as a stovepipe for specialized, albeit mission-critical, applications. And it is still primarily a vertical, industry-focused IT market segment, which is especially strong in finance, telecommunications, transportation, manufacturing, and the military.

None of which is to imply that the CEP market is not buzzing with activity or growing apace. The past several years have seen the entry of many promising, pure-play CEP vendors, including Agent Logic, Aleri, AptSoft, Coral8, Esper, GemStone, Kaskad, LeanWay, RiverGlass, SeeWhy, Syndera, StreamBase, and Vhayu. In recent months, Aleri, Coral8, SeeWhy, and StreamBase have issued important product enhancements that keep them in the forefront of industry innovation. In addition, established SOA, business process management (BPM), and middleware vendors such as TIBCO, Progress Software, BEA, and IBM have continued to beef up their CEP offerings through strategic acquisitions and product development.

But what’s conspicuously missing is any serious CEP uptake by business intelligence (BI) vendors, who could be instrumental in delivering real-time event streams to desktops, mobile devices, and other client environments. Consequently, most CEP tools must be implemented alongside users’ existing BI environments, providing a separate, event-optimized layer of visualization, dashboarding, modeling, repository, rules engine, resource connection, and administration tools.

What could explain this reluctance by BI vendors to test the CEP waters? To some degree, their wait-and-see posture reflects the slow uptake of real-time BI among their core enterprise customers. BI vendors have been beating the real-time drum for some time now. However, few BI users have been clamoring for the ability to refresh reports, dashboards, and scorecards continuously with straight-from-the-source event feeds. Many BI users can tolerate some latency in the delivery of key business data, and have been quite content to pull such data from intermediary data warehouses, which combine near-real-time data with historical information.

Nevertheless, CEP is an important complement to BI, and also to enterprise information integration (EII) solutions, which federate query/update operations directly to operational databases. It’s only a matter of time before most BI and EII vendors partner with CEP pure-plays, or acquire them outright, in order to strengthen their real-time event-driven functionality. We expect to see Business Objects, SAS, Cognos, Oracle/Hyperion, Microsoft, Information Builders, and MicroStrategy venture into the CEP arena in the next 1-2 years. Likewise, it’s very likely that a soon-to-be-independent Teradata, which has taken the lead in real-time data warehousing, will snatch up a CEP vendor to build out its real-time BI portfolio.

SOA middleware vendors will expand their CEP capabilities in order to offer event-driven architecture as an alternative or supplement to SOA. More vendors will CEP-enable their BPM environments’ BAM tools to support split-second response to changing business conditions. More enterprise service bus (ESB) vendors will invest in CEP to provide a user-friendly event aggregation, correlation, and visualization overlay to their publish-and-subscribe environments.

But the CEP market cannot achieve its full potential until the vendor community creates a consensus interoperability framework that leverages open SOA standards. One good sign is the recent founding of the Event Processing Technical Society (EPTS), a group of vendors and other interested parties that was created in late 2006 to build awareness of CEP’s applications, clarify CEP terminology, and define a CEP reference interoperability framework.

However, the EPTS has explicitly stated that it does not intend to become a standards organization, though it may work with standards groups at a later date. Unfortunately, the group has not yet produced a public draft of any such framework, nor has it attempted to reach out to groups such as the Organization for Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), which has developed a CEP-relevant standard: WS-Notifications, which supports event-driven, notification-based SOA interaction patterns.

The CEP market will evolve swiftly over the next few years as open standards emerge, as open-source alternatives appear, and as leading SOA, ESB, BI, and EII vendors acquire the most promising pure-plays. The industry’s tipping point toward ubiquity is fast approaching. By the end of this decade, the CEP arena will look very different, and enterprises will be able to deploy multi-application, vendor-agnostic, standards-based CEP infrastructures.

********************

Jim

herenow Complex Event Processing V

All:

Further continuation:

Then, once I had a handle on this complex multifaceted “event,” I banged out the CIR in the standard Current Analysis format. Here’s an abridged final text of what I published that day (almost final, that is—I’m sure my editors corrected typos etc prior to publication:

**************************************

Competitive Intelligence Report

Module Data Management

Report Title StreamBase Launches Next Generation Complex Event Processing Platform

Analyst(s) James Kobielus

Date June 20, 2007

Peer Reviewed By

Target Markets

B2B Communities, End Users, Global 2000, IT Implementers, Large Enterprises, Small to Medium Enterprises, Systems Integrators, Third Party Implementers

Analytical Summary

· Current Perspective: Positive on StreamBase’s announcement and preview of the forthcoming version 5.0 of its flagship complex event processing (CEP)/event stream processing (ESP) product platform. The vendor has further differentiated its CEP/ESP solutions by announcing a wide range of enhancements in connectivity, scalability, performance, development, presentation, security, administration, deployment, and platform integration.

· Vendor Importance: High to StreamBase, because it needs to continue differentiating itself through deep functionality in the fast-emerging but overcrowded CEP/ESP market, in which major SOA vendors—such as TIBCO, BEA, Progress Software, and IBM—have flagged as a high priority in their ongoing product strategies.

· Market Impact: High on the BI and DI market, because CEP/ESP—also known as “event processing”--is a high priority in the evolution of the service-oriented architecture (SOA), enterprise service bus (ESB), business intelligence (BI), data warehousing (DW), and data integration (DI) markets; because StreamBase is a fast-growing CEP/ESP pure-play with a strong product family; and because the next-generation of StreamBase’s product family, now in advanced beta, will include a broad range of enhancements that raise the functionality bar for it many competitors,

Analysis Section

Perspective

We are taking a positive stance on StreamBase’s announcement and preview of the forthcoming version 5.0 of its flagship complex event processing (CEP)/event stream processing (ESP) product platform. The vendor has further differentiated its CEP/ESP solutions by announcing a wide range of enhancements in connectivity, scalability, performance, development, presentation, security, administration, deployment, and platform integration.

StreamBase’s announcement confirms trends discussed elsewhere (see the Business Intelligence and Data Integration market assessments under Data Management). First, real-time, event-driven application architectures are becoming more important in e-business environments, a long-running trend that continues to stimulate the development and growth of the CEP/ESP market. Second, the volume of time-critical events, messages, and other data that enterprise and carrier networks must process, store, and manage continues to grow, a trend that places a high priority on robust, scalable, high-availability, high-performance CEP/ESP. Third, open-source platforms such as Eclipse continue to grow in importance, thereby spurring vendors to incorporate those platforms into their product architectures. Fourth, interactive browser-based visualization is becoming a standard feature of many data-rich applications, a trend that is causing vendors to implement a growing range of rich Internet application (RIA) standards.

StreamBase’s announcement offers the following value points for its customers. First, StreamBase announced that StreamBase 5.0 will be generally available by September 30. Second, the release will full integrate Eclipse into the StreamBase Studio development tool. Third, the release will include an extended industry-specific Application Framework for algorithmic equities trading. Third, the release will support multi-event CEP pattern matching through an enhanced rules syntax. Fourth, it will add support for processing and persistence of binary large objects (BLOBs). Fifth, it will introduces integration with several third-party RIA environments. Sixth, it will include an upgrade to the Chronicle persistence framework for time-series data, supporting optimized read/write integration and bulk loading with third-party repositories from IBM, Sybase, and Vertica. Seventh, it will include new advanced security capabilities, including event-level security support, network data encryption, and secure, role-based authorization. Eighth, it will introduce an Eclipse-based Adapter Toolkit to connect StreamBase CEP applications to virtually any data source. Ninth, it will introduce many enhancements in administration and deployment.

StreamBase’s announcement was a necessity for the vendor to continue differentiating itself through deep functionality in the fast-emerging but overcrowded CEP/ESP market. In addition, StreamBase continues to scale its CEP/ESP software and optimize its architecture more tightly with its principal hardware and software partners’ platforms. Furthermore, the vendor is providing application developers with a more flexible pattern-matching rules syntax for creating optimized CEP/ESP algorithms for processing and persisting massive amounts of time-critical data. And StreamBase has integrated its CEP/ESP development tool fully with Eclipse, allowing customers to leverage and extend their commitment to that open-source platform.

However, StreamBase, like all CEP/ESP vendors, has staked out a narrow market segment that has not yet been able to penetrate the enterprise mainstream in most customer verticals. Also, the vendor is vulnerable to diversification by its hardware partners—and by SOA, ESB, BI, DW, and DI vendors generally--into the CEP/ESP market. Furthermore, StreamBase has not provided a roadmap under which it will roll out industry-specific CEP/ESP application frameworks for any verticals other than financial services. And it has not introduced any interfaces to third-party business process management (BPM) environments that would enable its CEP/ESP platform to support real-time, event-driven workflows or “closed-loop” operational BI.

StreamBase’s announcement sends a signal that it intends to continue evolving its CEP/ESP platform rapidly to differentiate itself from rivals in this crowded, competitive segment. Rival CEP/ESP vendors should immediately state how they match or surpass StreamBase’s latest release in connectivity, scalability, performance, development, presentation, security, administration, deployment, and platform-integration features. Vendors of SOA, ESB, BI, DW, or DI offerings that lack CEP/ESP products should scout for strategic acquisitions from a very promising field of startups. Existing StreamBase users should begin to evaluate the current beta of StreamBase 5.0 right away and urge the vendor to make good on its promise to make this new version generally available by the end of September.

In summary, StreamBase remains a pacesetter in the emerging CEP/ESP marketplace, and its forthcoming version 5.0 release of its flagship product platform will help it to hold existing customers and attract prospective customers who are new to this market.

Positives and Concerns

Competitive Positives

· StreamBase has further differentiated its complex event processing (CEP)/event stream processing (ESP) platform by announcing a wide range of enhancements for the forthcoming version 5.0, which is due to be released by the end of the third quarter. StreamBase 5.0, which was previewed this week at a financial services industry conference, offers new functionality in CEP/ESP connectivity, scalability, performance, development, presentation, security, administration, deployment, and platform integration.

· StreamBase continues to scale its CEP/ESP software and optimize its architecture more tightly with its principal hardware and software partners’ platforms. StreamBase 5.0 enhances the vendor’s Chronicle persistence framework, which further improves the platform’s read/write integration with high-capacity, time-series event-data stores, such as IBM DB2 9, Sybase Real-time Analytics Platform, and Vertica. This release will also add support for processing and persisting binary large objects.

· StreamBase is providing CEP/ESP application developers with greater flexibility in writing custom rules for real-time, low-latency, complex event processing with sophisticated pattern matching. StreamBase 5.0 will introduce an enhanced pattern-matching syntax, which will help developers to define rules that recognize the order, presence, or absence of complex combinations of real-time events. This release will allow patterns to be identified within single event streams or across multiple parallel streams over any given period.

· StreamBase has integrated its CEP/ESP development tool fully with Eclipse. In the upcoming release, the StreamBase Studio tool is being enhanced to support graphical CEP/ESP application development involving Eclipse plug-ins, Java code, and the vendor’s StreamSQL query language. From within the tool, application developers will be able to access a full set of StreamBase-provided Eclipse plug-ins for source-code version control, task management, graphical UI development and integration, XML editors, and SQL design.

· StreamBase has integrated its CEP/ESP platform with a broad range of rich Internet application (RIA) environments, supporting more interactive, browser-based visualization of complex, real-time patterns and trends. StreamBase 5.0 will integrate with Adobe Flex, Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation, Java Swing, and Eclipse Standard Widget Toolkit. The platform will enable bi-directional interaction in any of those RIA environments, a useful feature when CEP/ESP applications are designed to monitor and control systems and other resources in real time.

· StreamBase has expanded the connectivity, security, and administration features of its platform, providing an even more robust platform for mission-critical, real-time event-streaming applications. StreamBase 5.0’s Eclipse-based Adapter Toolkit enables will allow CEP/ESP applications to connect to virtually any data source. The release will add event-level security support, network data encryption, secure directory interfaces, and role-based user authorization. And it will introduce enhanced remote administration, error management, cross-application data sharing, and other new administration and deployment features.

Competitive Concerns

· StreamBase, like all CEP/ESP vendors, has staked out a narrow market segment that has not yet been able to penetrate the enterprise mainstream in most customer verticals. Most CEP/ESP vendors are primarily addressing the real-time event-processing requirements of three verticals: financial services, telecommunications, and government/military. Though to some degree this niche can be regarded as a segment of the operational business intelligence (BI) market, few enterprises consider CEP/ESP in their BI planning exercises.

· StreamBase is vulnerable to diversification by its hardware partners—and by SOA, ESB, BI, DW, and DI vendors generally--into the CEP/ESP market. Over time, CEP/ESP will become a core, integrated feature of all computing platforms, and of the SOA, BI, DW, and DI environments that integrate tightly into those platforms. This trend can be seen in recent moves by TIBCO and BEA into the CEP/ESP segment, and by IBM’s recent announcement of plans to productize its “stream computing” technology.

· StreamBase has not provided a roadmap under which it will roll out industry-specific CEP/ESP application frameworks for any verticals other than financial services. Also, StreamBase lacks packaged interactive-visualization applications that it can use to address the real-time BI and CEP requirements of distinct horizontal and vertical markets. In this latter regard, StreamBase and other CEP/ESP vendors lag behind TIBCO, which will very likely leverage Spotfire’s “guided analytics” to target particular CEP/ESP horizontal and vertical segments.

· StreamBase has not introduced any interfaces to third-party business process management (BPM) environments that would enable its CEP/ESP platform to support real-time, event-driven workflows or “closed-loop” operational BI. In this regard, StreamBase lags behind SeeWhy, which has introduce a toolkit in the latest version of its CEP/ESP platform that enables standards-based integration with third-party BPM and rules-engine environments.

· StreamBase has previewed a broad range of new CEP/ESP features that will not be generally available for another three months. Prospects who find these latest announcements enticing may get frustrated waiting for StreamBase to ship the promised release. Just as serious, prospects may get distracted by announcements that other CEP/ESP vendors, established and startup, are likely to make in coming months.

Recommended Actions

Recommended Vendor Actions

· StreamBase should seek to be acquired by a leading SOA, ESB, BI, DW, or DI vendor, so as to increase its visibility in today’s crowded CEP/ESP market; leverage the acquirer’s R&D resources; tap into the acquirer’s global sales, marketing, and channels; and integrate its offerings tightly into a best-of-breed enterprise software product family.

· To drive its CEP/ESP technology into the enterprise primetime market, StreamBase should consider OEM’ing to SOA, ESB, BI, DW, and/or DI vendors; developing midmarket packaging, pricing, partnerships, and go-to-market messaging for its solutions; and delivering the functionality through new approaches/channels such as software-as-a-service (SaaS), purpose-built appliances, and open source.

· To ensure that it can continue to scale up its CEP/ESP technologies using low-cost distributed approaches, StreamBase should recruit a broader range of technology partners--including HP, EMC, Intel, Sun, Teradata/NCR, and Cisco—and focus on grid, in-memory, multi-core, and other high-performance, scalable computing architectures. StreamBase should also regularly publish third-party benchmarks that vouch for its performance and scalability in processing high-volume event streams, so as bolster its claims in this regard.

· To expand the range of vertical markets that it can address with packaged CEP/ESP solutions, StreamBase should develop application framework/accelerators for telecommunications, government/military, transportation/logistics, media, pharmaceuticals, consumer packaged goods, and other industries. Just as important, StreamBase should recruit consulting, system integrators, value-added resellers, and other channel partners in those verticals, so that it can engage their domain expertise in developing solutions tailored to those segments’ specific requirements.

· To expand its ability to sell its CEP/ESP solutions in closed-loop operational BI environments, StreamBase should introduce standards-based interfaces to third-party BPM rules-engine environments. At the very least, StreamBase should implement a WS-Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) interface, as well as tighter integration with leading BPM engines from TiBCO, IBM, Microsoft, Lombardi, and others.

**********************************

Jim

herenow Complex Event Processing IV

All:

Further continuation:

So I chose to write a CIR on StreamBase, covering all of these announcements. I usually like to get a briefing from the vendor in question before or during writing the CIR. I believe I also spoke with StreamBase during that time (though I’m not 100 percent sure---my notes are back home right now—I’m on the road covering another vendor right now). Anyway, regardless of the vendor or the announcement(s), for each and every CIR I prepare a to-myself notes doc that I call a “raw stuff.” What these notes do is boil the event down to the most concise, BS-free, description of the event (i.e., of actual substance of the vendor’s specific announcements), to serve as the starting point for my analysis. Here’s my StreamBase “raw stuff,” distilled/rewritten from the press releasese (and any other relevant info/notes in my possession) on that particular day:

****************************************

StreamBase raw stuff jun 19 2007

June 19, 2007 -- StreamBase Systems announced StreamBase 5.0, the latest generation of its complex event processing (CEP) platform. StreamBase is previewing various components of StreamBase 5.0 at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) Technology Management Conference & Exhibit in New York City from June 19-21. StreamBase 5.0 is expected to be generally available sometime before September 30, 2007. A free trial of the StreamBase software is currently available for download at www.streambase.com/developers. Initial launch partners of StreamBase 5.0 include IBM, Microsoft, and Sybase.

StreamBase 5.0 includes the following enhancements:

· Eclipse-based Integrated Development Environment (IDE): StreamBase 5.0 completes the transition of the Studio IDE to Eclipse to support graphically oriented development integration between StreamSQL, Java, and Eclipse plug-ins. StreamBase 5.0 developers can extend their StreamBase CEP applications via custom operators and integrations with external systems. In addition, StreamBase application developers are now able to access and leverage the entire ecosystem of Eclipse plug-ins from within the StreamBase development environment, including plug-ins for source code version control, task management, graphical UI development and integration, XML editors, and SQL design tools.

· End-to-End Application Frameworks: StreamBase 5.0’s open development platform introduces industry-specific Application Frameworks, with the first one designed for algorithmic equities trading; this is an extension to previously announced solution sets for Reg NMS and Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID). The StreamBase Algorithmic Trading Framework is based upon a number of proven best practices for developing the full range of real-time components comprising an algorithmic trading application. The framework helps speed the development, customization, and delivery of these applications, including trading strategies, execution strategies, real-time P&L management, and real-time transaction cost analysis.

· Multi-Event CEP Pattern Matching: StreamBase 5.0 introduces enhanced pattern-matching syntax, enabling users to more easily develop applications that recognize the order, presence, or absence of complex combinations of events in real-time. Patterns can be identified within single event streams or across multiple parallel streams over any given period – whether a response is desired in real-time or over an extended time interval. With these enhancements, developers can quickly build complex event recognition applications that may be used for real-time fraud and intrusion detection, network monitoring, click stream analysis, anti-money laundering, and more.

· New Support for Advanced Data Types: StreamBase 5.0 introduces support for Binary Large Objects (BLOBs), enhancing the platform’s ability to address multimedia and document-centric application requirements, in addition to existing support for video, image, audio, XML payloads, unstructured text, and other data types.

· Expanded Data Visualization Tools for Real-Time Monitoring: StreamBase 5.0 introduces integration with several third-party visualization tools, including Adobe Flex, Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Java Swing, and Eclipse Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT). StreamBase 5.0 provides bi-directional interaction with user interfaces built from these tools, enabling the creation of dashboards and other visual interfaces for monitoring and controlling real-time applications.

· High-Capacity Data Management & Persistence Framework: StreamBase 5.0 Chronicle is the second major release of the enhanced and extended persistence framework for time series data. Chronicle now provides optimized read/write integration with industry-leading, high-capacity tick stores including IBM DB2, Sybase RAP, and Vertica. In addition, Chronicle also supports bulk-loaders for these high-capacity tick stores and continues to leverage the standard JDBC interface for connecting to other historical databases.

· Enterprise-Class Security: StreamBase 5.0 includes new advanced security capabilities, including event-level security support, network data encryption, user authentication through secure integration with LDAP servers, and role-based authorization to control user access and activities.

· End-to-End Integration with External Data Sources: StreamBase 5.0 introduces the ability to use StreamBase’s Eclipse-based Adapter Toolkit to connect StreamBase CEP applications to virtually any data source. In addition, StreamBase 5.0 provides a wide range of pre-built adapters to all major market data and messaging infrastructure systems. StreamBase 5.0 adapters include TIBCO Rendezvous and EMS, Java Message Service (JMS), Reuters Market Data System (RMDS), Wombat, Bloomberg, IBM WebSphere Front Office (WFO), and opentick, enabling developers to tie data feeds directly into their StreamBase applications and provide end-to-end integration with any system.

· Enhanced Administration & Run-Time Features: StreamBase 5.0 introduces improved remote administration capabilities, error management and reporting, deployment flexibility with rolling upgrades, flexible data sharing capabilities across application components, and dozens of other improvements.

In addition, StreamBase 5.0 builds on the high-performance features of previous release, and is s — and remains the fastest CEP server available today, capable of processing hundreds of thousands of messages per second per CPU. In addition, the new StreamBase 5.0 enhancements further speed the development and delivery of CEP applications that address the rapidly growing real-time processing demands of customers and partners worldwide. StreamBase 5.0 offers built-in support for IBM’s DB2 data server, WebSphere Front Office, and xSeries hardware.

StreamBase also unveiled a comprehensive CEP Reference Architecture for Algorithmic Trading for accelerating the time-to-market and increasing the extensibility of real-time algorithmic (algo) trading applications. Developed by StreamBase and Microsoft, the new CEP Reference Architecture is based on industry best practices and describes the critical real-time sections of an algo trading system and its key presentation layer components. The CEP Reference Architecture for Algorithmic Trading delivers an end-to-end framework for designing an algorithmic equities trading application and also describes the interconnection between its key real-time and user interaction components. The key real-time components are Market Data Cleansing, Data Enrichment, Trading Strategies, Risk Management, Execution Strategies, and Market Impact / Implementation Shortfall processing. Microsoft’s WPF enables rich client applications, and its powerful and flexible programming model integrates support for flexible layout, high-quality text, resolution-independent graphics, animation, video and 3D.

Furthemore, Sybase, Inc. announced that Sybase’s Real-time Analytics Platform, a highly optimized real-time data processing service platform, now integrates with StreamBase’s CEP platform. The joint solution will support real-time applications having large storage requirements, such as back-testing for algorithmic trading, risk analysis and historical trade auditing. Sybase Real-time Analytics Platform is a high performance enterprise-wide solution that delivers in-memory transaction processing, massive time-series data management, deep historical data analysis and is built on Sybase’s capital market industry-proven data management and patented data analytics technologies that have been enhanced to perform in a highly scaleable manner. Sybase Real-time Analytics Platform can deliver virtual market data feeds at accelerated speeds to match StreamBase’s high-performance CEP platform and targets a wide range of real-time front, middle and back office applications including:

• Back-testing trading strategy algorithms using virtual feeds of historical data
• Algorithmic trading applications running queries against both real-time market data and massive historical data repositories of 100+ terabytes
• Validating predictive modeling applications by comparing predicted events to actual events
• Performing pre-trade risk and compliance analysis

****************************************

Jim

herenow Complex Event Processing III

All:

Before I lose the train of thought--here's the continuation of that same thoughtstream:

From these “clipped” articles, I often identify one or more event—i.e., a vendor announcement encapsulated in a press release--that seems important enough to be the subject of a Current Analysis event report—a Competitive Intelligence Report (CIR). Bear in mind that there are a great many vendor announcements that don’t change the competitive balance, hence get filtered out of my equation. You know what I’m talking about: the vast majority of the IT vendor puff PR stuff that hits the wires. I ignore press releases of this sort:

• Vendor so-and-so just landed in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant yet again, or was lauded by Forrester or AMR for being so gosh-darn innovative.
• Vendor so-and-so just notched another impressive customer win, and is delivering a sensational solution that is revolutionizing life as we know it.
• Vendor so-and-so just hired Joe or Jane Blow to be the executive VP for solution marketing.
• Vendor so-and-so had yet another profitable quarter.
• Vendor so-and-so’s solution won Portugal’s Good Software Design Award for the third year running.
• Vendor’s so-and-so’s CTO is speaking to Wall Street Analysts on the theme of “SOA: What’s it Stand For?”
• Vendor so-and-so finally ships v5.1.8.7 SP 3.4 of its SplenDaWare 2000 product, incorporating 4,132 incremental feature tweaks that only diehard users really understand or care about.

The ones that I do pay attention to are those from substantial vendors who are making substantial announcements in substantial—albeit sometimes still emerging--markets. For example, the following press releases from StreamBase, a CEP/ESP software vendor, collectively jumped out at me on that particular day:

**********************************

StreamBase press releases jun 19 2007

June 19, 2007 01:41 PM Eastern Daylight Time

StreamBase 5.0 Delivers First End-to-End Complex Event Processing Platform

CEP Leader Reveals Industry’s Most Complete, High-Performance CEP Platform At SIFMA’s Technology Management Conference

Technology Management Conference & Exhibit

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, StreamBase Systems revealed StreamBase 5.0, which raises the bar by delivering the first end-to-end Complex Event Processing (CEP) platform — a major new release enabling rapid development and deployment of real-time applications on the industry’s most proven platform.

IBM’s Vice President of Information Management, Arvind Krishna commented, “We are pleased that StreamBase’s 5.0 Complex Event Processing platform offers built-in support for IBM’s DB2® data server, WebSphere® Front Office, and xSeries® hardware, and look forward to continuing our technology partnership and enabling CEP capabilities and benefits that will appeal to a broad array of enterprises everywhere. By combining the power of IBM and StreamBase, customers can have the confidence to address even the most complex, real-time business challenges, and do so in a scalable, maintainable, and proven manner.”

StreamBase 5.0 further pioneers the next-generation of CEP by introducing major new functionality and addressing dozens of customer feature requests related to developer productivity, out-of-the box application frameworks, end-to-end application development, expanded support for advanced data types, flexible pattern matching, enterprise-class security, and high-capacity tickstore support. This release also continues to build upon the industry-leading performance of previous releases — and remains the fastest CEP server available today, capable of processing hundreds of thousands of messages per second per CPU. In addition, the new StreamBase 5.0 enhancements further speed the development and delivery of CEP applications that address the rapidly growing real-time processing demands of customers and partners worldwide.

“In the four years since StreamBase pioneered this technology, Complex Event Processing has matured enormously and StreamBase 5.0 delivers the leading-edge capabilities that will make CEP the ubiquitous approach for building real-time applications,” said Dr. Michael Waclawiczek, Senior Vice President, Products at StreamBase Systems. “We have solicited feedback and input from over two dozen customers, and their requirements are incorporated into StreamBase 5.0.”

StreamBase 5.0 includes:

Eclipse-based Integrated Development Environment (IDE) — With StreamBase 5.0, StreamBase completes the transition of its Studio IDE to Eclipse resulting in the seamless development integration between StreamSQL, Java, and Eclipse plug-ins . By using one simple, intuitive graphical platform based on Eclipse, the de facto standard for Java application development, StreamBase 5.0 developers can easily extend their StreamBase CEP applications via custom operators and integrations with external systems. In addition, StreamBase application developers are now able to access and leverage the entire ecosystem of Eclipse plug-ins from within the StreamBase development environment. Such plug-ins include those for source code version control, task management, graphical UI development and integration, XML editors, and SQL design tools.

End-to-End Application Frameworks — As an extension to previously announced solution sets for Reg NMS and Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), StreamBase 5.0’s open development platform introduces industry-specific Application Frameworks, with the first one designed for algorithmic equities trading. The StreamBase Algorithmic Trading Framework is based upon a number of proven best practices for developing the full range of real-time components comprising an algorithmic trading application. The framework helps speed the development and delivery of these applications, including trading strategies, execution strategies, real-time P&L management, and real-time transaction cost analysis. [SEE ALSO: STREAMBASE LAUNCHES CEP REFERENCE ARCHITECTURE FOR ALGORITHMIC TRADING, June 19, 2007].

“Developed by StreamBase and third-party vendors and programmers, our Application Frameworks are part of a strategic initiative to help accelerate the delivery of solutions that today’s competitive organizations need to meet key challenges around acquiring, processing, and acting on high-volume real-time data,” said Waclawiczek. “Customers and partners can now leverage these Application Frameworks to design and implement specific solution sets that address their core business pains.”

Multi-Event CEP Pattern Matching — By introducing enhanced pattern-matching syntax, StreamBase 5.0 enables users to more easily develop applications that recognize the order, presence, or absence of complex combinations of events in real-time. Patterns can be identified within single event streams or across multiple parallel streams over any given period – whether a response is desired in real-time or over an extended time interval. With these enhancements, developers can quickly build complex event recognition applications that may be used for real-time fraud and intrusion detection, network monitoring, click stream analysis, anti-money laundering, and more.

New Support for Advanced Data Types — With the growing adoption of CEP in various industries, there is an increased demand for StreamBase’s platform to process, analyze, and manage a variety of new data types including video, image, audio, XML payloads, and unstructured text. StreamBase 5.0 addresses this by introducing support for Binary Large Objects (BLOBs). BLOB support greatly enhances StreamBase’s ability to meet multimedia and document-centric application requirements in both existing industries and new markets that wish to embrace CEP.

Expanded Data Visualization Tools for Real-Time Monitoring — StreamBase 5.0 introduces integration with a number of third-party visualization tools, including Adobe® Flex™, Microsoft Windows® Presentation Foundation™ (WPF), Java™ Swing, and Eclipse Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT). StreamBase 5.0 provides bi-directional interaction with user interfaces built from these tools, enabling the creation of powerful dashboards and other visual interfaces for monitoring and controlling real-time applications.

High-Capacity Data Management & Persistence Framework — StreamBase 5.0 Chronicle™ is the second major release of the enhanced and extended persistence framework for time series data. Chronicle now provides optimized read/write integration with industry-leading, high-capacity tick stores including IBM DB2®, Sybase RAP®, and Vertica®. In addition, Chronicle also supports bulk-loaders for these high-capacity tick stores and continues to leverage the standard JDBC interface for connecting to other historical databases. [SEE ALSO: SYBASE ANNOUNCES NEW FINANCIAL SERVICES REAL-TIME ANALYTICS AND COMPLEX EVENT PROCESSING PLATFORM WITH STREAMBASE , June 19, 2007]

Enterprise-Class Security — In addition to offering enterprise-class clustering, high availability, and being SMP-enabled, StreamBase 5.0 also includes new advanced security capabilities. Adding to existing security features, StreamBase 5.0 now offers unique event-level security support, network data encryption, user authentication through secure integration with LDAP servers, and role-based authorization to control user access and activities. With this release, StreamBase offers the industry’s most comprehensive security implementation for enterprise-class CEP applications.

End-to-End Integration with External Data Sources — Using StreamBase’s Eclipse-based Adapter Toolkit, developers can connect their StreamBase CEP applications to virtually any data source. In addition, StreamBase 5.0 provides a wide range of pre-built adapters to all major market data and messaging infrastructure systems. StreamBase 5.0 adapters include TIBCO Rendezvous® and EMS®, Java Message Service (JMS), Reuters Market Data System (RMDS), Wombat, Bloomberg^SM, IBM WebSphere® Front Office (WFO), and opentick, enabling developers to seamlessly tie data feeds directly into their StreamBase applications and provide end-to-end integration with any system.

Enhanced Administration & Run-Time Features — With improved remote administration capabilities, error management and reporting, deployment flexibility with rolling upgrades, flexible data sharing capabilities across application components, and dozens of other improvements, StreamBase 5.0 offers the industry’s most complete, robust and mature CEP platform.

"Complex Event Processing has proven itself as a crucial technology," said Sang Lee, Research Director at Aite Group. "With the release of StreamBase 5.0, the company is further demonstrating its commitment to address the rising demand for enterprise-class CEP. StreamBase is helping to drive the evolution and adoption of CEP not only by financial services institutions, but also by many other sectors that need to solve challenges around low-latency processing of high-volume data."

StreamBase is currently previewing various components of StreamBase 5.0 at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) Technology Management Conference & Exhibit in New York City from Tuesday, June 19^th through Thursday, June 21^st at booth # 1770. Initial launch partners of StreamBase 5.0 include IBM®, Microsoft®, and Sybase®.

StreamBase 5.0 is expected to be generally available sometime before September 30^th, 2007. A free trial of the StreamBase software is currently available for download at www.streambase.com/developers.

About StreamBase

StreamBase's award-winning Stream Processing Platform, fueled by the standards-based next generation query language, StreamSQL™ and an Eclipse-based development environment, offers the fastest Complex Event Processing software for processing of real-time and historical data. With StreamBase and StreamSQL, enterprises can query, process, and analyze real-time and stored data at rates of up to hundreds of thousands messages/second. StreamBase’s combination of real-time performance, persistence, and programmability empowers enterprises in industries like financial services, telecom and networking, e-Business, government and military to solve new classes of business challenges in a more timely, scalable, and cost effective manner than custom-coding. StreamBase is headquartered in Lexington, Massachusetts with offices in New York, Washington, D.C., and London. A downloadable version of StreamBase's software is available at http://www.streambase.com/.

© 2007 StreamBase Systems, Inc. All other trademarks or trade names are properties of their respective owners. All rights reserved.

Contacts

StreamBase
Donna Parent, 781-761-0841
donna.parent@streambase.com
or
PerkettPR
Christine Major, 603-743-4534
streambase@perkettpr.com

June 19, 2007 01:42 PM Eastern Daylight Time

StreamBase Launches CEP Reference Architecture for Algorithmic Trading

Industry-First End-to-End Framework For Algo Trading Speeds Application Design & Development

Technology Management Conference & Exhibit

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--StreamBase Systems, Inc., the leader in high-performance Complex Event Processing (CEP), today unveiled a comprehensive CEP Reference Architecture for Algorithmic Trading for accelerating the time-to-market and increasing the extensibility of real-time algorithmic (algo) trading applications. Developed by StreamBase and Microsoft Corp., the new CEP Reference Architecture is based on industry best practices and describes the critical real-time sections of an algo trading system and its key presentation layer components.

“We are excited to align Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) with StreamBase’s CEP platform for building real-time algo trading apps based on the newly released Reference Architecture,” said Craig Saint-Amour, U.S. capital markets industry solutions director, Microsoft Corp. “With financial institutions facing low-latency, high-volume processing demands, we understand that increasing developer productivity and accelerating time-to-market are critical areas fueling competitive advantage. Microsoft and StreamBase both recognize the importance of a powerful presentation layer for algorithmic trading applications and the combination of WPF with the StreamBase CEP platform is a great fit.”

The CEP Reference Architecture for Algorithmic Trading delivers an end-to-end framework for designing an algorithmic equities trading application and also describes the interconnection between its key real-time and user interaction components. The key real-time components are Market Data Cleansing, Data Enrichment, Trading Strategies, Risk Management, Execution Strategies, and Market Impact / Implementation Shortfall processing.

Microsoft’s WPF enables rich client applications, and its powerful and flexible programming model integrates support for flexible layout, high-quality text, resolution-independent graphics, animation, video and 3D. StreamBase provides the fastest, most scalable, high-performance CEP platform in the industry – enabling the development of new real-time applications much faster than with traditional custom coding, in weeks not months. [SEE ALSO: STREAMBASE 5.0 DELIVERS FIRST END-TO-END COMPLEX EVENT PROCESSING PLATFORM, June 19, 2007].

“As the volume and velocity of financial market data continue to explode, staying ahead of the competition requires the right tools and infrastructure,” said John Partridge, Vice President, Industry Solutions at StreamBase. “This new CEP Reference Architecture will give developers a competitive edge for building real-time algo trading applications with a fully realized user interface that makes it easy to monitor and control the application’s response to the market.”

To learn more about the CEP Reference Architecture for Algorithmic Trading delivered by Microsoft and StreamBase, visit the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) to download a solutions whitepaper, which will be posted shortly after the Conference. [http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/architecture/aa699365.aspx%5D

In addition, please visit StreamBase at booth #1770 during the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) Technology Management Conference & Exhibit, June 19-21 in New York, NY to learn more about the new CEP Reference Architecture for Algorithmic Trading and see a WPF / StreamBase CEP demonstration.

About StreamBase

StreamBase's award-winning Stream Processing Platform, fueled by the standards-based next generation query language, StreamSQL™ and an Eclipse-based development environment, offers the fastest Complex Event Processing software for processing of real-time and historical data. With StreamBase and StreamSQL, enterprises can query, process, and analyze real-time and stored data at rates of up to hundreds of thousands messages/second. StreamBase’s combination of real-time performance, persistence, and programmability empowers enterprises in industries like financial services, telecom and networking, e-Business, government and military to solve new classes of business challenges in a more timely, scalable, and cost effective manner than custom-coding. StreamBase is headquartered in Lexington, Massachusetts with offices in New York, Washington, D.C., and London. A downloadable version of StreamBase's software is available at http://www.streambase.com/.

© 2007 StreamBase Systems, Inc. All other trademarks or trade names are properties of their respective owners. All rights reserved.

Contacts

StreamBase
Donna Parent, 781-761-0841
donna.parent@streambase.com
or
PerkettPR
Christine Major, 603-743-4534
streambase@perkettpr.com

Sybase Announces New Financial Services Real-Time Analytics and Complex Event Processing Platform with StreamBase

Combined Platforms Enable Complex Analytics with High-Volume, Real-Time and Historical Data

DUBLIN, CA — JUNE 19, 2007 — Sybase, Inc. (NYSE: SY), a leading provider of enterprise infrastructure and mobile software, today announced that Sybase’s Real-time Analytics Platform, a highly optimized real-time data processing service platform, now integrates with StreamBase’s high-performance Complex Event Processing (CEP) platform. The joint solution will support real-time applications having large storage requirements, such as back-testing for algorithmic trading, risk analysis and historical trade auditing.

The driving market forces behind this solution include competitive pressure to build complex quantitative trading strategies, a heightened demand for combined static and dynamic data analysis, and the explosive growth of market data volumes. "Vendors are recognizing the market demand for applications that can help institutions integrate real-time data, historical data, and overlay analytics to provide both derived data and actionable output,” said Ben Butterfield, senior research associate at The Tower Group.

“We’re elated to work with Sybase,” said Dr. Michael Waclawiczek, senior vice president, products, StreamBase. “As a leader in enterprise infrastructure and mobile software, Sybase aligns perfectly with our industry-leading CEP platform. We look forward to working with Sybase to bring this joint solution to our customers and to further address today’s real-time data intensive challenges.”

Sybase® Real-time Analytics Platform is a high performance enterprise-wide solution that delivers in-memory transaction processing, massive time-series data management, deep historical data analysis and is built on Sybase’s capital market industry-proven data management and patented data analytics technologies that have been enhanced to perform in a highly scaleable manner.

“Based on our extensive experience in financial services and leading market share, Sybase recognizes the importance of high performance CEP for the industry,” said Steve Capelli, president, worldwide field operations. “The combination of StreamBase and Sybase Real-time Analytics Platform provides a powerful platform on which financial services firms can build strategic real-time applications.”

Sybase Real-time Analytics Platform can deliver virtual market data feeds at accelerated speeds to match StreamBase’s high-performance CEP platform and targets a wide range of real-time front, middle and back office applications including:

• Back-testing trading strategy algorithms using virtual feeds of historical data
• Algorithmic trading applications running queries against both real-time market data and massive historical data repositories of 100+ terabytes
• Validating predictive modeling applications by comparing predicted events to actual events
• Performing pre-trade risk and compliance analysis

Please visit the Sybase booth #3012 during the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) Technology Management Conference & Exhibit, June 19-21 in New York, NY, to learn more about the integration of Sybase Real-time Analytics Platform and StreamBase platforms.

About Sybase, Inc.
Sybase is the largest global enterprise software company exclusively focused on managing and mobilizing information from the data center to the point of action. Sybase provides open, cross-platform solutions that securely deliver information anytime, anywhere, enabling customers and partners to create an information edge. The world's most critical data in commerce, communications, finance, government and healthcare runs on Sybase. For more information, visit the Sybase Web site: http://www.sybase.com/.

####

Sybase is a registered trademark of Sybase, Inc. All other company and product names mentioned may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

Special Note: Statements concerning Sybase’s future growth, prospects and new product releases are, by nature, forward-looking statements that involve a number of uncertainties and risks, and cannot be guaranteed. The words “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “will” and similar expressions relating to Sybase and its management may identify forward-looking statements. Such statements are intended to reflect Sybase’s current views with respect to future events and may ultimately prove to be incorrect or false. Factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially include shifts in customer demand, rapid technology changes, competitive factors and unanticipated delays in scheduled product availability. These and other risks are detailed from time to time in Sybase’s Securities and Exchange Commission filings, including, but not limited to, its annual report on Form 10-K and its quarterly reports on Form 10-Q (copies of which can be viewed on Sybase’s Web site).

Ruth Busbee
Citigate Cunningham
(415) 618-8739
rbusbee@cunningham.com

*******************************************

Jim

herenow Complex Event Processing II

All:

Picking up where the previous post left off:

That said, I just want to go off now on a philosophical tangent that ties this all into what I do for a living. I’m an industry analyst. Specifically, I’m an industry analyst with Current Analysis. Like all industry analysts, I’m essentially a reporter, responding to the events of the day and dissecting them in depth. As an industry analyst with Current Analysis, I’m event-driven in a more real-time, fine-grained way than most folks at other firms (e.g., Burton Group, where I once worked). Bottom line: a vendor in my space (Data Management) makes an important announcement (as determined by me), and I respond to that event within 48 hours with analytical/research report that examines that event in depth, laying out—within what amounts to a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis—how that event changes the competitive dynamics/balance, in some major or minor way.

I’m an event processor. To drive that home for you, here (in reverse chronological order) are the 23 events to which I’ve responded in the past 3 months with published reports:

****************************************

Oracle Announces First Partner Product Under Data Warehouse Appliance Initiative

Competitive Intelligence Report Data Management - [Oct 01, 2007] Oracle announced the first commercial fruits of its partner- focused DW appliance strategy, setting the stage for the vendor to deliver its market-leading DBMS as pre-optimized, scalable hardware/software solution for enterprise deployment.

Compassoft Tightens Enterprise Spreadsheet Controls for GRC

Competitive Intelligence Report Data Management - [Sep 28, 2007] Compassoft released version 3.5 of its spreadsheet governance solution, adding real-time spreadsheet monitoring and best- practices templates that strengthen its ability to enforce governance, risk, and compliance policies at the desktop level.

Business Objects Integrates Inxight Text Analytics and Search into XI Platform

Competitive Intelligence Report Data Management - [Sep 28, 2007] Business Objects launched new text analytics and search solutions that leverage the recently acquired Inxight technology, but has taken only the first tentative step toward integrating unstructured data into its extensive product family.

TIBCO Improves Multi-domain MDM Data Governance

Competitive Intelligence Report Data Management - [Sep 26, 2007] TIBCO released TIBCO Collaborative Information Manager (CIM) 7.0, the latest version of its best-of- breed MDM solution, which provides incremental enhancements and a new GUI in support of cross-catalog, multi-domain, multi-hub deployments.

Initiate Systems Enhances Multi-Hub, Multi-Entity MDM

Competitive Intelligence Report Data Management - [Sep 25, 2007] Initiate Systems has improved its support for multi-hub, multi- domain deployments with the latest major enhancement release to its flagship MDM platform, and now may be considered a best-of- breed enterprise-grade MDM solution provider.

Microsoft Releases Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 in Major CPM Push

Competitive Intelligence Report Data Management - [Sep 21, 2007] Microsoft has released the long-awaited Office PerformancePoint Server 2007, re-launching the vendor into the hotly competitive financial CPM arena with a feature-rich, user-friendly, midmarket-focused solution.

Harte-Hanks Trillium Software Expands Integration Across DQ Suite

Competitive Intelligence Report Data Management - [Sep 20, 2007] Harte-Hanks Trillium Software released a fully integrated version of its DQ product family, introducing new collaborative data stewardship and non-name/address features to stay in the thick of this very competitive market.

SPSS Integrates Flagship Statistical Software with Predictive Analytics Governance Platform

Competitive Intelligence Report Data Management - [Sep 19, 2007] SPSS released the latest enhancement version of its flagship statistical analysis tool, improving the product’s integration with the vendor’s Predictive Enterprise Services environment for life-cycle governance of predictive analytics models.

Business Objects Targets Mid-market with BI On-demand and Virtual Appliance Offerings

Competitive Intelligence Report Data Management - [Sep 18, 2007] Business Objects launched its BI on- demand solution family, further deepening its mid-market value proposition, supplementing its premises-based offerings, and providing a clear migration path for crystalreports.com users.

Business Objects Launches Fully Integrated CPM Application Suite

Competitive Intelligence Report Data Management - [Sep 14, 2007] Business Objects launched EPM XI, its comprehensive CPM product suite, which fully integrates all acquired CPM applications and positions the vendor well for greater penetration into this hotly competitive segment.

Cognos Enlists Informatica as Key Data Quality Partner for CPM

Competitive Intelligence Report Data Management - [Sep 13, 2007] Cognos announced an expansion of its strategic partnership with Informatica, focusing on resale of Informatica’s DQ solutions into Cognos customers’ CPM deployments and Cognos provision of DQ-focused professional services to CPM customers.

Siperian Deepens Support for Governance of Complex, Multi-Hub MDM Environments

Competitive Intelligence Report Data Management - [Sep 11, 2007] Siperian released the latest version of its MDM hub product, extending its already strong data governance functionality through security, metadata, workflow, and other enhancements in support of complex, multi-hub, multi-entity deployments.

Cognos Acquiring Applix to Expand Share of Financial CPM Market

Competitive Intelligence Report Data Management - [Sep 07, 2007] Cognos plans to acquire rival financial CPM vendor Applix, further broadening its range of CFO-focused analytic applications. However, the converged vendors face growing competition from Oracle, SAP, Business Objects, SAS, Microsoft, and others.

DATAllegro Implements Distributed Architecture and Online Archiving in New DW Appliances

Competitive Intelligence Report Data Management - [Aug 23, 2007] DATAllegro pre-announced future grid-enabled versions of its DW appliances. However, the vendor did not provide independent benchmarks to substantiate its grid price-performance claims, nor did it commit to specific general availability dates.

Netezza Continues to Improve DW Appliance’s Query Performance

Competitive Intelligence Report Data Management - [Aug 22, 2007] Netezza released query optimization enhancements to its DW appliance product family. However, Netezza has not corroborated the claimed performance improvements with independent benchmarks, nor has it reduced the price for its DW appliances.

Oracle Enhances Recently Acquired In-Memory, Distributed Data-Grid Technology

Competitive Intelligence Report Data Management - [Aug 15, 2007] Oracle released a distributed, In-memory data-grid middleware product incorporating technology acquired from Tangosol. This release further integrates and optimizes the data-grid middleware as a component of the Oracle Fusion product family.

Oracle Releases 11g Database for Linux

Competitive Intelligence Report Data Management - [Aug 15, 2007] Oracle announced the general availability of its 11g DBMS for Linux x86 platforms, as well as pricing and packaging, but has still not announced when versions for Windows and other platforms will become available.

Business Objects Presents Integrated Data Model for Converging CPM Applications into Cohesive Suite

Competitive Intelligence Report Data Management - [Aug 09, 2007] Business Objects committed to integrating its diverse CPM applications into the XI platform through an integrated data model, but did not publish a specific roadmap/schedule of CPM product enhancements that will carry out this plan.

IBM Packages Data Integration and Quality Suite as Appliance

Competitive Intelligence Report Data Management - [Aug 08, 2007] IBM announced a grid-enabled, blade- based appliance version of its IBM Information Server DI/DQ suite, complementing and extending its recently revamped its IBM Balanced Warehouse DW appliance product family.

IBM Acquiring Princeton Softech to Advance Information Lifecycle Management

Competitive Intelligence Report Data Management - [Aug 06, 2007] IBM announced its intention to acquire information lifecycle management software vendor Princeton Softech, in a move that will deepen IBM’s ILM portfolio but overlap with existing WebSphere, FileNet, and Tivoli offerings.

Business Objects Enhances Support for Product Data Quality

Competitive Intelligence Report Data Management - [Aug 03, 2007] Business Objects has enhanced the product data support in its DQ solutions, but it still has not completely integrated its DQ products with its DI solutions, nor has it leveraged its DQ products into a credible position in the MDM market.

IBM Acquires DataMirror to Expand Heterogeneous Event Processing and Changed Data Capture

Competitive Intelligence Report Data Management - [Jul 17, 2007] IBM announced that it is acquiring DataMirror, a pure-play vendor of real-time CDC, event processing, and replication solutions, and that it plans to incorporate DataMirror’s technology throughout its data management product portfolio.

Oracle Launches Next-Generation 11g Database Management System

Competitive Intelligence Report Data Management - [Jul 13, 2007] Oracle formally announced the next-generation Oracle Database 11g, which will include an impressive range of enhancements to the vendor’s market-leading DBMS. However, Oracle has not provided a general availability date or pricing for the product.

****************************************

I’m a Complex Event Processor, like most IT industry analysts, because I dissect events that are multifaceted, and that take place in very dynamic, multidimensional, blurry-edged market contexts. I’m an Event Stream Processor, because I take these (and the countless events that I choose not to write on) in a steady stream, a passing parade, in which I must exercise quick-fuse judgment re which are very important, which are so-so, and which can be safely ignored. Like most analysts, I hold in my head a set of criteria, perspectives, priorities, themes, frameworks, etc for identifying what appear to be the most important events at any point in time. And these criteria continue to evolve as my “space” evolves, and as my understanding of its shifts and deepens with experiences. No, I don’t pretend to be infallible on such things.

How do I filter the event stream, the passing parade, day in and day out? I don’t know how other analysts manage it, but I simply read what’s in my inbox(es), and check the newswires, and plow through the snailmailed magazines etc that pile up, sifting and clipping and throwing stuff into stacks, both hot and cold. One of my core quotidian tasks is to compile an “articles to print” file each and every day that simply contains references/pointers to the online news/articles that tickled my fancy, for whatever reason (there isn’t usually any organizing theme), on each day. Here for example is the full text of my “articles to print” (most of which I don’t actually print—the name’s not to be taken literally—on June 19 of this year):

******************************

ARTICLES TO PRINT June 19 2007

Coral8 Enables Enterprise-Wide Complex Event Processing with Coral8 Engine Release 5.0

SeeWhy Software Adds Advanced Profiling to SeeWhy Community Edition 3.2

Coral8 and Lab49 Partner to Provide Algorithmic Trading Framework on the Microsoft Software Platform

Coral8 Works With Microsoft to Deliver Scalable Trading Application Frameworks in Capital Markets

Progress Software Reports Second Quarter Results

Actuate Survey Unveils Growing Momentum and Broad Adoption of Open Source Business Intelligence

Raytheon Cross-Certifies with CertiPath's 'Trusted PKI Bridge'

Talend Launches Open Source Data Integration On Demand

I.B.M. to Show Stream Computing System Tuesday

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/technology/19compute.html?ei=5089&en=a629586a208a3066&ex=1339905600&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

Gartner gives Oracle increased edge over IBM in database market http://cwflyris.computerworld.com/t/1668225/66627838/68090/2/

IBM, Sun Prove Why Grid Computing is Alive and Well

http://www.esj.com/news/article.aspx?EditorialsID=2660

Rational Continues Buying Spree

http://www.eweek.com/print_article2/0,1217,a=209754,00.asp

DATAllegro: an update on Version 3

http://www.it-director.com/technology/infrastructure/content.php?cid=9569

Symmetric Key Services Markup Language (SKSML) Requirements
http://xml.coverpages.org/EKMI-SKSML-Reqs.pdf
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/ekmi/faq.php

SAP Expands Footprint to Meet Growing Demand for Mobile Business Solutions http://media.prnewswire.com/en/jsp/latest.jsp?resourceid=3497475&access=EH

Sybase Announces New Financial Services Real-Time Analytics and Complex Event Processing Platform With StreamBase http://media.prnewswire.com/en/jsp/latest.jsp?resourceid=3497470&access=EH

StreamBase 5.0 Delivers First End-to-End Complex Event Processing Platform

StreamBase Launches CEP Reference Architecture for Algorithmic Trading

Greenplum Expands Relationships with Unica, Kinetic Networks and Sun Microsystems to Introduce Breakthrough Web Analytics Solutions

Database Trends: Q&A with Gartner's Donald Feinberg

http://www.intelligententerprise.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199903507

Appian Launches Compliance Manager

http://www.intelligententerprise.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199905270

IBM Unveils Informix Upgrade

http://www.intelligententerprise.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199903446

MAGIC QUADRANT AUTHOR DISCUSSES DATA MINING SOFTWARE BUYING TIPS
http://go.techtarget.com/r/1614932/2433922

SeeWhy Releases Business Process Management Integration Kit

http://www.seewhy.com/content/view/170/87/

Exploratory Stream Processing Systems

http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/research_projects.nsf/pages/esps.index.html

**********************************

Jim

herenow Complex Event Processing I

All:

We haven’t fully launched into the Fall 2007 series of SOA analyst podcasts yet. Dana says it will start up again some time this month.

One topic I’d like to discuss is how complex event processing (CEP)—sometimes known as event stream processing (ESP), event processing (EP), or event-driven architecture (EDA)--relates to SOA. CEP is the term popularized by Dr. David Luckham, an IT visionary who created a new architectural school of distributed computing around the notion. EDA is a popularized by Roy Schulte of Gartner, and is half technical, half business in thrust, often used in the same conceptual breath as “just-in-time business.” ESP is associated with real-time pub-sub middleware approaches such as traditional message brokering or queuing systems. EP is the shortened term that is increasingly used to stand for them all, reflecting the fact that the similarities among these notions are more important than the distinctions.

For the sake of this discussion (herenow in this post, and eventually in the anticipated podcast), I’ll alternate between them all. I’ll use CEP to key in on the growing complexity of this approach, of the events being processed, and of the conceptual, interactivity, and visualization approaches necessary for extracting actionable intelligence from them all. I’ll use ESP to focus on the streaming, real-time, continuous flow of events. I’ll use EDA to focus on the need for a ubiquitous event bus, across which all nodes are event-enabled, so that services, applications, business processes, and other endpoints can engage in event-driven notifications, publish-subscribe, and so forth, at all architectural layers from the physical on up. And I’ll use EP when I’m too tired to split hairs anymore and just need a pithy catch-all.

I’ve heard it said on many occasions that SOA and EDA are polar opposites—that SOA presumes request-response two-way interaction patterns among endpoints, whereas EDA supports both two-way notification/acknowledgment and one-way publish-subscribe interactions. I disagree with that limiting characterization of SOA, because I see SOA, as a paradigm, being independent of the interaction patterns on the underlying “enterprise service bus” (ESB) or what have you. SOA simply refers to a development and integration paradigm that focuses on maximizing the reuse, sharing, and interoperability among distributed resources by means of a standard, ubiquitous interoperability backplane, fabric, environment, mesh, etc (call it ESB for short). The resources being reused via SOA can conceivably be event sources, and the ESB can conceivably support the requisite pub-sub, notifications, etc to enable this reuse/sharing.

So in that sense I see EDA/CEP/ESP/EP as a subset of SOA—i.e., referring to just another category of interaction patterns traversing the ESB to further the goals of SOA.

But on another level, paradoxically, I see EDA as in some way a master umbrella concept that subsumes SOA—i.e., as a superset of SOA. To explain what I mean by that, let’s focus on SOA’s core concept: the service. When you look at services in the context of SOA governance, you realize that a service is fundamentally just a string of events associated with the life-cycle of some network-accessible resource:

• Event: service proposed
• Event: service authorized
• Event: service created
• Event: service tested
• Event: service provisioned
• Event: service called
• Event: service responded
• Event: service monitored
• Event: service managed
• Event: service modified
• Event: service deprovisioned

Essentially, then, SOA governance is the sum total of practices and policies that manage the complexity (CEP: developing, orchestrating, monitoring, managing increasingly complex composite services) and the streams (ESP: myriad, concurrent, overlapping, real-time) of events throughout ubiquitous (EDA: IT and business) distributed architectures.

Jim